Country music’s evolving consumption trends are being shaped by the listening habits of Gen Z and millennials, according to new data by Luminate. The genre’s streaming-assisted surge to the top has been steadily increasing over the past several years but 2023 is proving to be its most impressive year yet.
With the record-shattering entry of Morgan Wallen’s new album, “One Thing at a Time” (Republic/Big Loud) on March 3, Wallen scored the biggest opening week numbers of 2023 for any album by units earned (501,000). He also had the fifth-largest streaming week ever with approximately 76% of “One Thing at a Time’s” half-million opening units coming from its impact on DSPs.
Per Luminate, the 36-song record accumulated a little over 483 streams during the week ending March 9, pushing the weekly genre total to 2.22 billion streams. Notably, more than one in every five country music streams was for Wallen’s album during its debut week.
This week, “One Thing at a Time” marked one full month at No. 1 with its strong streaming presence still leading the majority of its equivalent sales. Meanwhile, Wallen’s 2021 album “Dangerous: The Double Album” still remains in the top 10. And this combined with the No. 5 debut of Luke Combs’ “Gettin’ Old” is contributing to the genre’s unwavering year-over-year streaming growth.
The genre regularly thrives in live music spaces where fans can discover new artists in country halls, bars and tours but before 2020, the genre had little significance on streaming. Instead, listeners opted for more traditional sources like album sales, which make up a much larger share of country music’s consumption compared to chart-topping genres.
Those facts have somewhat flip-flopped in recent years, with country streaming numbers rising while the total country album sales (physical and digital) have declined each year. (That’s with the exception of 2021 when Taylor Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” combined to sell over one million copies.)
Courtesy of Luminate Data
Today, the average country music fan’s listening habits are across the board. Music audio streaming is the third most popular listening option, after radio and video, although it is the leading format for Gen Z and millennials (a continuing trend from 2022) who make up 50% of the average listenership for Wallen, along with artists like Combs and Zach Bryan.
As for country album sales, vinyl LPs have significantly increased their share from 6.6% in 2019 to 27.2% in 2022 and are currently holding 28.1% so far in 2023. CDs, on the other hand, have dropped the most share as they decline from 63.9% in 2019 to 43% so far in 2023.
Though country music has historically lagged behind rap and pop on streaming services, the genre has caught on in a big way — even on Gen Z-favored platforms like TikTok — and is looking to have another big year with the popularity of cross-over collaborations.
Take for example the fem-powered showcases at the 2023 CMT Awards where Carly Pearce duetted with Gwen Stefani on No Doubt’s “Just a Girl,” and Alanis Morissette shared verses with artists including Lainey Wilson, Ingrid Andress, Morgan Wade and Madeline Edwards.
Mirroring the genre’s movement on DSPs, the country awards show saw its biggest audience yet with over 5 million viewers tuning in for an increase of 5% compared to 2022, according to Paramount Global. This was just the second year the awards show aired on CBS and was made available for streaming on Paramount+ since the show moved from a cable platform to the broadcast network last year.
